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User blog:Qazqaz555/English Dub Review
For anyone who cares about Funimation's licensed dub on Keijo: In my experience, people usually watch anime with the Japanese audio because most of their English-dubbed versions have been frankly subpar. But as with all things, English dubs can't be generalized because not all of them are the same quality. There have been instances of excellent, enjoyable, and therefore successful English dubs (Fullmetal Alchemist), but there are also ones that are just downright laughable. I usually start out watching a series with the English audio to give it a chance, and switch over to Japanese if I don't like it too much. For Keijo, I was particularly interested in watching the dub after finishing the initial series since the voice cast includes actresses I've heard of. Overall in dub standards, they did an okay job, but a pretty meh one overall. But I did enjoy some parts of it, which definitely helps the reputation of the actresses who did well. After watching it over a couple of times, I can get an overall perspective and see what worked and what didn't. What Worked *Amber Lee Connors as Nozomi and Felecia Angelle as Sayaka. Both of them pretty much nailed their roles. They were both able to perfectly capture Nozomi and Sayaka's personalities, mannerisms, and overall feel of their characters. *Sarah Wiedenheft as Non. Also fairly straightforward, she was able to convey Non's clumsy but cheerful persona through her voice, and stood out in several moments, such as when she gets ignited by Higuchi during the East-West War. *Anastasia Muñoz as Kyoko Shirayuki. Her voice gave off a "stern, strict, and powerful mentor, but also sweet and motherly" kind of feel. The scene where she nitpicks little imperfections of the outfighter group is done very well in particular. What worked while differing from the Japanese audio *Mio Kusakai - In the English dub, Kusakai sounds significantly older than the rest of the students at Setouchi, but it still manages to fit with her character, albeit what appears to be a different version of her character. It strengthens the scenes where she flirts with others girls by adding a kind of mature feel. *Hanabi Kawai - In the original audio, Hanabi's voice is pretty high-pitched while her English counterpart has a more "down to Earth" feel. This mixes in with her friendly nature and helps the dialogue between Nozomi and herself. What could have worked better *Musou Miyata - He has the strict and intimidating gruff voice necessary for the characters personality. However in some scenes, especially the flashbacks where he's arguing with his daughter, he sounds more like a high school bully than a commanding authority. It weakened the weight of his words towards Sayaka and honestly made those scenes feel more awkward than emotionally tense. **The line "What are you going to do? Run from judo?" had a tone that felt like he was trying to make fun of his daughter. I don't really see Muso as someone who would be having that kind of attitude in that situation. He really shouldn't be amused, he should be annoyed and angry during that time. Every line before this one was done very well, but this one felt out of place and silly. The lines Muso has after the flashback follow suit and just made his character look less stern than it should be. *Usagi Tsukishita - The lines where she goes crazy for Kusakai are done well, but its the other lines that make Tsukishita's English voice feel awkward. Her raspy voice isn't necessarily the cause, it could have fit in well, but the tone of voice she uses makes her sound a little dull and uninterested most of the time. What didn't work *Ujibe - Too monotone for my taste. There was no authority, no emotion, no feel of a mentor figure in the lines of Ujibe's English dialogue. Like Muso, the way the tone is carried out removes the weight of the words that come out of the character and pretty much dulls out any conversation. *Ayako Sakashiro - Same problems with Ujibe, but she sounds more like a bossy teenager than a strict coach. The voice didn't really do the character justice even with how little screen time Ayako gets in the anime. I dislike the anime's portrayal of Ayako to begin with, and the way the English voice is carried out makes it worse. *Maya Sakashiro - She mostly sounded confused whenever she spoke. There wasn't any of the level-headedness and hard-heartedness that was felt in Maya's voice in the Japanese air. ---- So to summarize, there were some goods in the English voice acting, but there were just as many bads. A lot of what made the goods good was that the voices were able to perfectly capture the characters, but unfortunately not all of the characters ended up with the same results. TL;DR - decent for English dub standards, meh for an overall standpoint Category:Blog posts